^this year in particular. The tropical smoothie stand was open more often than not when I went by this summer. I don’t think I saw the Coke freestyle in the train station open more than 20 times out of 70 visits.

I know of people who signed up for a previous blog meetup using different names but the same email. They only got one copy of the email but both names were on the list when it came to the day of the meetup. So you should be fine.

Here's why I think, aesthetically, it would make more sense to put a Giga at X-Base/Coney, over Action Zone: the view; both of the park, and from the coaster.
Putting a huge coaster at the front of the park would really dominate the skyline, in a negative way, in my opinion.
Also, from the ride, what would there be to see? The parking lot! Great Wolf Lodge! The greenhouses! The new dorms!
Alternately, it could be set back into those gorgeous woods that surround Kings Island. Make use of the varied terrain. I know which I'd prefer.
I do realize that SoB was a huge coaster situated at the front of the park. I feel that location was one of many mistakes made in the planning of that coaster.

The little greenhouse itself had been set up outside the customer service call room, near Graeters, in past weeks, but was moved under the tower this weekend. When I was there Friday (and when I saw it in the former location previously) I didn't notice it being used beyond being an interesting bit of theming.

Does anyone know what this was all about?
Surprisingly for a Sunday, we found these costumed performers under the Eiffel Tower. They were dressed, as far as I can tell, as bronze statues of the Wicked Witch and a Flying Monkey from Wizard of Oz. They were standing like statues with their backs to the majority of the crowds. When people tried to speak with them they did not respond aside from moving their eyes.
There were no professional photos or video being taken (which I originally thought would make a little sense). They didn't have any non-costumed employees as handlers so far as I could see, as I would have expected. And it was sooooo hot, I was boiling in shorts and a t-shirt, so I can only imagine how bad it was in full body costume and either full face paint (the witch) or full face/head mask (the flying monkey).
I just really don't understand why they would send out costumed characters to a semi-obscure location where they aren't even interacting with guests, on a Sunday, without support staff, on a ridiculously hot day. Did these two performers anger someone and this is their punishment?
Another oddity is that I don't recall seeing any similar characters (either "statues" or Wizard of Oz) during actual Haunt nights, at least not since the statues of Cemetery Drive a few years ago when International Street was a scare zone.

I've been told there is a restroom in the building where Chaos is held. So there's at least some water and sewage capabilities in the area.
The cost of putting restrooms there, even if there wasn't already any infrastructure, pales in comparison to the price of a possible Giga, however.

^I think we had an in-person discussion of that early in the season. How is a semi-famous chef going to feel being the face of the quality of the food across the park, but where he will have very little day-to-day control of a historically poorly managed* department? Well, last time I saw him in the park (recently, which was also the first time I have seen him in quite some time) he didn't look happy.
*I know I've gone into more depth about this before, but a big part of the problem is that in food service in particular, if you are /good/ at managing people you can pretty much find a job anywhere. What is the incentive for such a person to take on a seasonal job? As opposed to a full year full time job, with benefits and a constant paycheck? There are a few unicorns out there for whom it might be a perfect fit to only work part of the year, but they're going to be hard to find and keep. I think it is likely that turnover in management is worse than the turnover of employees, as people either find it is more than they can handle, burn out, or discover they can find more consistent work elsewhere.